The ex-aircraft carrier of the Indian Navy, INS Vikrant is converted into a floating museum and rechristened Indian Museum Ship (IMS) Vikrant. She is now anchored opposite to Middle Ground near Gateway of India in Mumbai. It is precisely a five minute ride from Gateway of India. The Navy extensively refurbished Vikrant and opened it to the visitors during Navy Week in December, last year. During the period of a fortnight, over one lakh people visited the ship. Pending formal conversion into maritime museum by the Government of Maharashtra and considering the overwhelming response from the visitors, the Navy has now thrown open Vikrant to the public from January 12, this year on trial basis.

This is with a view to meet the enormous demand of the public to see the ship and also assess the economic viability of sustaining her, said Rear Admiral Kocchar, Flag-Officer Commanding, Maharashtra Naval Area. A corpus of about Rs 12 crore is needed to generate funds for the ship's annual upkeep. Corporate sponsorships and contributions are welcome, he added while addressing media personnel on board Vikrant.

The preliminary focus of the museum was to highlight the role of the ship as the cradle of naval aviation in the country. Subsequently, it was decided to expand this to include all facets of naval activities so that the general public could get to see and understand the Navy in all its hues. Specialised naval areas like diving, naval operations, armament, missiles, naval uniforms and seamanship aspects were therefore included in the gamut of artifacts, exhibits and displays. The museum is now a microcosm of the entire Navy.

The museum will be further expanded to cover naval operations in greater depth, depicting the glory of naval victory in 1971 and the role of Vikrant in achieving this victory. Also, other compartments of the ship that can be converted will be made operational/functional as and when more funds become available.